Brewer won’t change mind on illegal-immigrant driver’s licenses

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is standing by her decision that young immigrants granted legal status by President Barack Obama are not entitled to state driver’s licenses, rebuffing the federal government’s legal interpretation over an issue that has already landed the state in court.

Brewer revealed her decision on Monday after her legal team reviewed a January clarification by the Department of Homeland Security that says young immigrants granted “deferred action” status are legally authorized to be in the country, although they have no lawful status.

Brewer’s spokesman, Matthew Benson, said the governor and her legal team were not persuaded by the federal government’s guidance.

“The long and short of it is, we don’t believe anything has changed the state’s position,” Benson said.

He added that Brewer’s executive order will stand because she believes “the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have the authority to simply grant this population of people lawful status for unauthorized presence in this country.”

As of Jan.17, 14,069 young undocumented immigrants in Arizona had received deferred action through Obama’s program.

Brewer issued her executive order on Aug.15 — the same day the federal government began accepting applications for the program — barring undocumented immigrants who receive work permits through the program from receiving driver’s licenses.

Arizona is among a handful of states that blocked undocumented immigrants granted deferred action through Obama’s policy from receiving driver’s licenses.

But two of those states, Michigan and Iowa, recently reversed their decision and will now allow deferred-action recipients to get driver’s licenses after DHS clarified its guidelines.

The guidelines state that while deferred-action recipients do not have lawful status, they should be considered to be “lawfully present” in the U.S.

Under Arizona’s law, residents must prove their presence in the United States is “authorized under federal law” to be eligible for driver’s licenses. Benson said it’s possible that Michigan and Iowa have different laws on the books dictating who can and can’t get driver’s licenses.

He said the DHS has clarified that young undocumented immigrants allowed to remain in the U.S. through Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy “clearly” are legally authorized to be in the country and should be treated no different than undocumented immigrants who receive deferred action from deportation for other reasons.

He pointed out that the state already lets undocumented immigrants who receive federal work permits through other types of deferred action to get driver’s licenses.

Brewer’s latest decision “just confirms that vindictive approach, which is based on prejudice against a particular group and therefore they are singled out for worse treatment than other deferred-action groups even in the face of clear federal clarification that these folks, the DACA successful applicants, are here lawfully and are authorized under federal law to be here,” Pochoda said.

In November, several civil-rights and Latino advocacy groups filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to have Brewer’s executive order thrown out.

The lawsuit by the ACLU of Arizona, the national ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund argues Brewer’s executive order is unconstitutional because it is superseded by federal law.

The lawsuit also says Brewer’s order unjustly blocks undocumented immigrants who get federal work permits under Obama’s program from getting driver’s licenses because the state continues to give driver’s licenses to other non-citizens who get the same type of work permits through other forms of deferred action.

The lawsuit filed is seeking a temporary injunction allowing deferred-action recipients to get driver’s licenses while the case is pending, Pochoda said. He said a hearing is set for March22.

Democrats in the Arizona Legislature have introduced bills seeking to make a federally issued work permit sufficient proof that an individual is in the country legally and allow him or her to get an Arizona driver’s license.

An Arizona Republic analysis in November of Motor Vehicle Division data showed that over the past eight years, Arizona issued licenses and ID cards nearly 40,000 times to non-citizens who had federal employment-authorization documents which, according to DHS officials, are identical to the ones issued to deferred-action recipients under Obama’s program.

Since Brewer’s Aug.15 order, the state issued more than 1,000 driver’s licenses or ID cards to non-citizens with work permits while denying licenses to those with work permits issued through Obama’s program, the analysis found.

Obama’s program is aimed at young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers,” who are under 31, were brought to the U.S. before age 16 and have lived continuously in the country for five years.

Those who are granted deferred action are allowed to live in the U.S. temporarily without the threat of deportation for two years.

They also receive federal work permits allowing them to get a Social Security number and work legally in the U.S. during that time.

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